It’s difficult to feel like an empowered entrepreneur, ready to assert oneself on an important conference call, when you are wearing pyjamas, shovelling cereal into your mouth before it gets soggy with milk, cat meowing at your feet.

Four months after moving in with my boyfriend, I never expected to be left alone, tending to his pregnant dog. He bought Cadence, a golden Labrador Retriever, on a breeding contract, meaning any heat, the breeders may summon her to Gilead to partake in the Ceremony.

Dating is tough in Calgary when you’re female, nearly 30 and a pipeline protester.

Whereas I was once fluttering my eyelashes, preaching Naomi Klein over kombucha in an East Vancouver juice bar, I am now trying not to choke in a Calgary pub when my Tinder date breaks the news to me that climate change isn’t real.

Yes, I know you’re allergic to peanuts, not nut-nuts, but listen lady – okay, I get it, you were really looking forward to your cashews – but out of an abundance of caution the kitchen neglected putting them on your plate for reasons of cross-contamination, which, I would argue, meets the standard of a reasonably prudent establishment guarding against a civil lawsuit for your allergic reaction (gasp for air) …

Trust me, you do not want to wake the dragon, the fire-breathing litigator inside me, your 5-foot-1-inch server.